It’s hot out. Trust me–you do not want to fire up that oven! I made that mistake a couple of weeks ago on one of our 100-degree days. I was absolutely pooped the rest of the day and struggled to be chipper throughout my night shift.

Since then, I’ve resorted to putting some of those fresh veggies in my fridge to use. I have a couple of favorite recipes that I’ve adapted to make them more “clean”.

When I make this salad, I just use raw broccoli. Other recipes recommend blanching the broccoli first to make it easier to digest. I simply put the broccoli, almonds, and raisins together in a bowl. Then I whisk the Greek yogurt (I tend to use 1/3 cup instead of 1/4 because I like broccoli and have to even out the dressing a bit) with the balsamic vinegar. There are several variations to this. If the dressing is too think, I add a bit of almond milk to smooth it out a bit. If I want to make it a bit sweeter, I put about 2 tsp of honey into the dressing.

After whisking the dressing, I pour it over the salad and toss it well. Put the salad in the fridge for at least half and hour, and you’ll have a cool, healthy treat for lunch or dinner.

Summer Slaw

My husband and I attended an “informational session” at Crossfit GP when the new location had first opened on M Street. We had heard all about Crossfit in Korea and thought we’d check it out. The mini-workout they had us do was a lot of fun. As guests who attended the session, our names were put into a drawing, and we won a paleo cookbook! It has been a wonderful resource. There are parts of the paleo diet that wouldn’t work for me personally (like not having legumes–as an athlete, I refuse to cut peanuts out of my diet when I am not getting ready for a show). Because I have Celiac’s disease, I am already pretty restricted and choose clean sources of carbohydrates, protein, and fat that are signatures of the Paleo diet. Here is the book we won:

(Sarah, the author, has her own website by the same name. It’s a very informative resource. I recommend checking it out if you’re curious about the Paleo lifestyle or just need some inspiration for recipes: http://everydaypaleo.com/.)

The book has a recipe for “Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Slaw.” I have basically adapted Sarah’s recipe to utilize food that I almost always have on hand. You’ll need:

The only other thing that Sarah puts in her slaw is 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes. You could use those, or the other day I had two fresh plum tomatoes that needed to be eaten, so I chopped them up and tossed them in.

First cut up your cooked chicken, apple, and fresh tomatoes (if applicable). Toss that all in a bowl together. Then whisk the olive oil, balsamic, oregano, salt, and pepper together. Toss the dressing in with the salad and refrigerate for at least half an hour. My husband absolutely loves this one; I make it at least once a week for our work lunches.

With either salad, you can add or substitute ingredients. The slaw would probably be good with canned tuna instead of chicken; you could add raisins instead of an apple. Be sure to go easy with using raisins, though, as they are high in sugar (still somewhat okay because it is natural sugar!).

Enjoy these summer salads. Remember, it’s important to eat healthily while beating the heat!